The 16-year-old McLean resident Kira Becker created a video about why students and teachers love Pi Day.

March 14 means two important things to both students and math geeks: a time to recite the digits of pi and eat even more pie.

For Kira Becker, junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, however, it was a chance to help her class raise money for a graduation venue and hawk the annual Pi Miler 5k.

The 16-year-old McLean resident created seven minute video shown on a giant outdoor screen at the Mosaic Shopping District Friday about why students and teachers love Pi Day.

"My mom is in charge of the (Parent Teacher Student Association), and she asked me to do a slideshow for a fundraiser," said Kira.

Because of her love for creating film shorts, Kira decided to upgrade her mom’s request and make a movie. While she is not currently taking movie-making courses at TJHSST, she learned many of her skills from middle school classes. Her passion and commitment for the project helped to garner $500 at Friday’s fundraiser.

"I took movie-making classes in seventh grade and absolutely loved it," she said. "It’s mostly something I do for fun."

The video covered all aspects of pi and pie -- it even had "American Pie," popular song by Don McLean, playing from start to finish.

She learned a lot about people during the filmmaking process, she said, and not just that it is possible to memorize 300 digits of pi. Some of her classmates, she found out, were apprehensive about being filmed for her movie.

"A lot of people actually said no," she said. "It was really surprising."

She also found out that filmmaking sometimes requires a quiet space for sound quality.

"I spent five lunch periods running around videotaping people," she said. "I filmed them outside in the hallway, so I spent a lot more time than I thought I would to align the sound, so the film can be higher quality."

Junior class president Anant Das was not among the students who refused to be filmed. In the movie, he is shown advertising the Pi Miler race that took place at 9 a.m. Saturday at Burke Lake Park.

"Pi Day is something really special at our school where we can bring out our nerdy side and good food," he said. "It was crazy to be in the movie, because I’m not used to being broadcasted like that, but it was exciting."